The arrangement¶

The first thing to establish is that it exists.

In Ankh-Morpork, most arrangements of this kind are not documented. This is not remarkable. What is remarkable is that this one is also not deniable: too many people in too many adjacent positions have said too similar a thing for it to be coincidence, rumour, or the particular kind of convenient misunderstanding the city specialises in.

A cloud provider received surveillance technology from a third party. In exchange, the data that technology collects flows back to the third party. The clients of the cloud provider were not told. The clients did not ask, because they did not know there was anything to ask about.

This is the arrangement. It is not complicated. It is, however, worth examining carefully, because its simplicity is doing considerable work.

What remains unknown¶

Whether the arrangement was voluntary, in any meaningful sense of the word. Whether the third party had the authority to make it. Whether the cloud provider believed it had a choice. Whether anyone, at any point, considered telling the clients.